Educational experts suggest that each lesson should have a closure activity – something that wraps up the experience or gives students a chance to summarize their learning. Many teachers have chosen to use a Ticket–out-the-Door activity for closure and as a formative assessment. This is an easy, multi-purpose strategy that can be used with almost any content or grade level.

However, tickets-out-the-door can lose their effectiveness with students if they are overdone. To avoid this problem, consider adding some variety to your tickets! The prompts below can be displayed on the board, reinforced with a printed visual on a ticket, or students can quickly draw the related shape on a scrap of paper. For black line masters of the ticket ideas below, email me at anne@ideasforeducators.com.

· If you were to fill a grocery cart with key concepts from today’s lesson, what would it contain?

· If this lesson were a pizza, what would the toppings be?

· Write a news headline based on what you learned today.

· What new learning will you walk away with today?

· Write a recipe for _______________________________.

· Write a text message summary of what you learned today.

· How does this information relate to money (the economy, jobs, etc.)?

· If this concept were turned into a menu, what would be the appetizer? Main dish? Dessert?

· Complete an analogy, beginning with today’s concept…

· Write a postcard to a friend or family member explaining what you did in class today.

Everyone in my household found a scratch-off lottery ticket in their stocking this year. We each experienced a few moments of hope and excitement as we carefully chose the spots to scratch. You can add that same fun* to your classroom instruction with scratch-off stickers. These are available from several websites and are fairly inexpensive. Just print out a list of review items – events, dates, vocabulary- and place a sticker over each item. You can also simulate the experience even less expensively by laminating your review list and dabbing a bit of poster paint over each item. When the paint dries it can be scratched off with a coin, revealing the item underneath.

Originally published in January, 2012. Today we used this strategy in a middle school science class. Each student made a prediction about the outcome of an experiment, then covered over their prediction with a scratch-off sticker. After the experiment, students swapped with a peer and scratched off to see if the predictions were correct.

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Coteaching (or collaborative teaching) is defined as a coordinated instructional practice in which two or more educators simultaneously work with a heterogeneous group of students in a general education classroom. A key word in this definition is coordinated. Coteaching partners spend time planning together, smoothly share instructional responsibilities, and collaboratively reflect on their practices. Effective coteaching can be compared to synchronized swimming: teammates must carefully coordinate, not only to win, but to avoid drowning!

Coteaching can look many different ways to the casual observer. Within one period, we may see both teachers take a lead in lecturing, giving directions, monitoring student behavior, or taking responsibility for a small group. We may see one teacher quietly collecting observational data while the other facilitates whole-group instruction, or one teacher problem solving with an individual student while the other continues the lesson. No matter what it looks like, effective coteaching always requires the active engagement of both educators for the entire period.

I have the opportunity to visit many schools around the country that wish to implement effective coteaching. As I observe in classrooms that are labeled “cotaught,” I see a wide range of implementation. In many cases I observe two educators fully engaged during the lesson, contributing their unique expertise to meet the needs of the students. But just as often I see one educator, usually the specialist, greatly underutilized. Evidence of this may include:

Hearing the specialist’s voice rarely or not at all

Seeing the specialist leaning against a wall for a significant portion of time, waiting for the general education teacher to finish lecturing

Watching the specialist wander the aisles, offering minimal cues or supports to individual students who may be struggling

Failing to note anything that could be called “specially designed instruction”

Observing little or no interaction between teachers

While debriefing my observations with teachers and administrators, I frequently learn that the coteaching partners have no common planning time. For coteaching to be most effective, partners must have time to coordinate their instructional efforts. Administrators must make common planning a priority when designing the schedules. Teachers must also create time-efficient ways to enhance their coteaching.

For example, a short brainstorming session with coteachers yielded 30 different tasks that Teacher A could be doing while Teacher B is lecturing, including:

Writing color-coded notes on the board or laptop

Echoing key words from Teacher B

Pulling up an online site (thesaurus, encyclopedia, media) to support instruction

Providing kinesthetic tools, manipulatives, aids, and props

Counting down, giving time clues, or managing a visual timer

Prompting engagement with directions such as: “Stand up if you …, Turn and talk about …, Stomp your feet if …”

Going on-the-spot to websites to show visual images

Another reason teachers cite for underutilizing the specialist is that they are in their first year of coteaching together and will “step it up” after they become more comfortable with each other. Students cannot afford for teachers to spend a year or more getting used to each other.For the sake of our students, we must “step it up” right away. This often means that the specialist must advocate more strongly for a significant role in the classroom. This may also mean that the general education teacher must welcome and, even more, expect the specialist to share ideas and expertise.

When both parties are willing and committed to effective coteaching, these conversations can be dynamic springboards for excellent instruction. When one party is less willing, these conversations can be difficult and uncomfortable. For the sake of our students, teachers need to have these conversations, no matter how uncomfortable. Luckily, resources are abundant! Checklists, discussion guides, and problem-solving processes can help partners clarify their roles and responsibilities so that both sets of skills and expertise are fully utilized. These tools and additional ideas can be found at www.ideasforeducators.com.

My favorite instructional strategies are the ones that don’t involve work on my part, and yet work for students! Try this one the next time you want students to review their content.

Think-Pair-Timed Share (T-P-TS) is a twist on the popular Think-Pair-Share. Both ideas come from the cooperative learning genre of strategies, thanks to Spencer Kagan. The power of T-P-TS is that all students are involved in sharing – not just the verbal, confident ones. The emphasis is on equal participation, one of Kagan’s four principles of cooperative learning. Pair students heterogeneously, and arrange for the stronger student to be Person A.

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to co-teach English with Mary. Students are in the middle of reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. To start class with a novel hook, I showed them an orange and asked them to predict what an orange might have to do with the play. We were greeted by some puzzled expressions at first, but then students began to buzz with each other about possibilities. I tossed the orange around the room and we listened to their ideas.

Most schools ask students to participate in periods of sustained silent reading. As I watch students reading, it is clear that some are very engaged and comprehending their books at a deep and thorough level. Others, maybe not…

The difficulty in considering an instructional intervention is that sustained silent reading shouldn’t be constantly interrupted by a professional intervening! I know many teachers who ask students to take notes, use stickies, etc. and these ideas can work very well. But what about when students don’t have these materials with them? What is more authentic to a non-school reading activity? What do good readers do when they are curled up on the couch reading for pleasure? How do they sustain their comprehension?

After reflecting on my own reading behavior, I found myself returning to something written in as ASCD article in 2002 by Perkins- Gough.

“Rereading with a purpose is perhaps the most vital strategy for promoting fluency and deep understanding of texts in every discipline.”

Good readers do a lot of rereading! I have become very aware of when I need to reread due to confusion or waning attention. To develop this awareness, I decided to make it more concrete by tapping my finger on the book page every time I caught myself rereading. This simple tactile intervention increased my awareness of my reading behaviors, so I decided to try it with students.